doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com "Hallucinating over High Velocity".......

.....is the name of an interesting thread developing over on the 16ga.com site this morning:

http://www.16ga.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=7635



If you are a follower of the 'low velocity' principle re: shotshell performance, you may find it worth your read.....or if not, for the conclusive photos alone.

It actually came about when one of the posters over there was recommending 3/4 oz. of #9 shot, pushed at 1500 fps, as the ultimate turkey-killing load, bar none. The low-vel principle has been around practically since the invention of physics, and can be found in the writings of Burrard, J.H.Walsh i.e. 'Stonehenge', G. Thomas, et. al. if you have access to those.

All Best,

Rob

I "tested" 16 Ga. 7/8 7 1/2's over a stock tank last year on Doves. One load was 1100 fps, one was 1300 fps. Range from 20-35 yards.

Guess which load folded the Doves up quicker ?

my bet is the slower one, the fast one is only more dangerous to the shoulder and face of the shooter, the doves wont care and the patterns will be better on the slow load.

Were they saying that an ultra high velocity round has to be set up correctly thereby negating the results of this test??
The more velocity the less of a lead you need for wing shooting. Granted there is a limited before the pattern is blown but that's the reason you need to set up the shell with the right components. Those Kent TM rounds have some serious velocity backing them and I get some excellent results while hunting, however I have never pattern tested them.

The only time I ever really "saw" the difference between low velocity and high velocity was when shooting an old Parker I have at trap. The right barrel is cylinder, if you use standard velocity trap loads in it you won't break many targets, but if you move up to heavy trap loads you'll break plenty. It's not a trap gun obviously but I used to shoot it a lot and would use it on clays just to keep warmed up with the gun.

Destry

What you describe is a point of impact issue. Different loads affect barrel time and recoil in a SxS gun, thus causing latteral POI change. How tight you hold the gun to shoulder and face is also a variable. The heavier shells obviously suit your shooting style best in THAT gun.

A quick shooter can break trap birds with a cylinder choke but statistically he will not break all of them. A 70% pattern at the target plane assures a possible 100 straight, a 50% pattern assures frequent misses. This is an established fact.

Also, the time of flight difference between a heavy and light trap load only allows the target to travel an additional three inches or so, hardly enough to move it out of a cylinder choke pattern. The pellet energy difference at the target plane is near nil.

Swing the gun through a pattern plate using your standard trapshooting technique with various loads... see if I'm not correct.

treblig,

I'm not getting that out of it at all. The point of the test data is likely that pushing the smaller shot sizes (8's & 9's) at hyper-velocities so that they kill as well downrange as big shot pellets do, can not happen because of the laws of physics. The fact that more shot distortion happens upon set-back in a 1500 fps load, and especially if shot through tighter chokes, is also pretty hard to refute as demonstrated by the fewer pellet strikes on the turkey-head target.

One might spend a lot of time searching for, and eventually finding, the right load combination out of his particular gun to deliver comparable densities - fast or slow, but it does not change the reality that the effective penetration of a high speed #9 (1500 fps mv) at 40 yards was found to be only half that of a #5 pellet started a full three hundred feet slower (1200 fps).....i.e. 16 sheets penetrated vs. 30+ sheets according to his data. Or that the same #9, started at 1200 fps, had only 6% less penetration (just one sheet less) at 40 yards than did the 1500 fps load. See his table.....

Again, I'm more or less viewing this initial data as an objective rebuttal to the recommendations of a few over there who advocate a 1500fps mv, 3/4 oz. load of 9's as bigger turkey 'medicine' - over the more standard offerings of larger shot.

Field anecdotes of 'how hard' birds are hit with a given load can add to that warm,fuzzy feeling we all get for them, but can't IMO really compare with actual testing on the pattern plate or penetration box where the playing field is actually level.

There's an old saying, somewhat modified, that "Research talks, and bullsh!t walks".......which is what we may be looking at here if the data is any good. Easy enough to find out for one's self, I'd think, as that penetration box looks somewhat easier to put together than say, a lunar module.


All Best,

Rob

Well put. The volume of a sphere is 4/3pi times the CUBE of it's radius. It's the cube part that makes the pellets frontal area change so little compared to it's weight as size goes up. This directly translates to better ranging and more retained energy. It dosen't matter how fast you start a feather.

MMMMMM, Revolutionary. Maybe that is why the 220 swift doesn't work very well on Cape Buffalo.

It is good to see the test for a refresher.
Thanks for the work.
jess

Jones,

I was just throwing out a fairly clear personal experience there, not saying anybody was wrong.

That gun with light loads was a 12-14 score but with heavy loads it was 19-20. I mean everytime, not just on a good day.


Destry